Black Activists to
Expose Environmental Policies that Harm Minority Advancement
at National Press Club Earth Day Press Conference

Policies That Inadvertently
Encourage Segregated Housing Among Those Cited as in Need of
Reform

Minority activists and environmental
experts are joining together on Earth Day 2004 to condemn domestic
and international environmental regulations that destroy economic
opportunity, encourage neo-segregationist housing policies, endanger
public health and generally pit human welfare against regulatory
goals.

Members of the African-American leadership
network Project 21 will be joined by distinguished environmental
scientists and activists in the National Press Club's First Amendment
Room (529 14th Street NW, 13th floor) in Washington, D.C. at
noon on Thursday, April 22, Earth Day, to discuss the need for
environmental justice policies that assess the economic and social
costs of regulations before they are enacted and the need to
reassess current policies that are socially, economically and
physically destructive. A light lunch will be provided.

"Clean air and water is in everyone's
best interest, but the elitist agenda of the environmental movement
hurts the economic well-being of people here in the United States
and threatens lives in the Third World," said Project 21
member John Meredith. "We must rely on logic and science
and not emotion when the stakes are so high."

Project 21 and the John P. McGovern M.D. Center for Environmental
and Regulatory Affairs, both programs of The National Center
for Public Policy Research, maintain the Center
for Environmental Justice web site, which contains reports
and essays on the effects of regulations on minorities and the
poor. Project 21 also offers an historical overview called "Solidarity
and Stewardship: African-Americans and the Environment"
that can be found at http://www.nationalcenter.org/CEJProjects.html.